ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sunbury Press has released Dennis Herrick’s murder mystery novel A Brother’s Cold Case. The book had been previously self-published by the author.

About the Book:
When the murder of Andy Cornell’s brother is still unsolved after two and a half years, Andy enters Albuquerque’s hidden worlds of cartel violence, street people, and Pueblo secrets to find justice.

He and Rick were inseparable as boys. So Andy is determined as a newspaper’s police reporter to help the cold-case unit find a breakthrough on the murder of his detective brother.

Andy’s ex-wife, a cold-case detective he once loved, a Pueblo tribal policeman, a college history professor, and a homeless drug informant seem unlikely allies. But they help Andy untangle conflicting details about his brother’s cold case.

To solve Rick’s murder, Andy must prove his own innocence when he becomes the suspect in the homicides of another man and a long-time reporter friend.

What Others Are Saying:
“A Brother’s Cold Case is timely and compelling. This story of a reporter’s search to connect a series of unexplained deaths before he becomes the next victim could have been ripped from newspaper headlines. Complete with a harrowing Sandia Mountain ambush, a life-threatening fire, and a long-surviving Pueblo Indian community with closely held secrets, this mystery will keep you up at night. Dennis Herrick’s new book is a good tale well told.” —Anne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman’s Daughter and Rock With Wings

Excerpt:
Taking another swig caused him to look up. That’s when he realized the man had turned to walk toward him.

“Beat it,” he ordered the man.

The man continued walking toward him. Rick slid off the picnic table bench and rose to his feet. He didn’t want to be sitting if it came to fighting for his booze.

The man stopped on the other side of the table. He wore dark clothes and stared at Rick from under the bill of a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His right arm extended toward Rick.

“What the hell you want?” Rick shook his doubled-up fists as a warning. “I told you to go away, you sonuvabitch. I mean it.”

The man seemed to smile as he stepped into a pool of light. Or was it a sneer? “Hello, Rick.”

Rick blinked. Another former cop? Not familiar. Who is this guy, Rick thought, and how does he know my name?

Rick grabbed his bottle and backed up a step. Now illumination from a park lamp glimmered on the steel pistol in the man’s right hand. A long sound suppressor extended from the barrel. With the table separating them, Rick couldn’t try to move closer and grab the gun as he’d been trained at the police academy years ago. Under the best of circumstances, that was hard to pull off anyway. Still, Rick thought, with the bourbon reassuring his brain of all things possible, maybe he could do it.

He moved sideways around the table to get closer. “Put the gun down,” he said as he took a step toward the man. He almost lost his balance, stepping sideways like that. “Put it away and just leave. We’ll pretend this never happened.”

Rick could see the man’s teeth gleam in the indirect light.

A rush, Rick thought. I’ll throw the bottle at him and rush him.

Rick was a split second from jumping at the man when his world ended.

About the Author:
Dennis Herrick writes mostly about the American Southwest, focusing on the Pueblo natives for his short stories, magazine articles, and his historical novel, Winter of the Metal People.

A Michigan native, he worked for and around newspapers all of his adult life as a daily newspaper reporter, a chief of staff handling press relations for a congressman, a weekly newspaper publisher and editor, a newspaper broker, and finally a full-time lecturer on journalism at the University of New Mexico.

He is a winner of the Tony Hillerman Mystery Contest and the Society of Southwestern Authors Contest.

He and his wife, Beatrice, have been married since 1967. They live along the west bank of the Rio Grande between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sunbury Press has released Ricky Bruce’s Dot and Scribble Fall into Adventure, the first volume in this new middle-grade series.

About the Book:
Hudson wants to add color to his picture, but his grandfather’s pen makes his medieval drawing come to life, transforming him into one of his characters.

When you fall into an adventure, you never know where you’re gonna land.

Excerpt:
Hudson hunched over his desktop and stared at the blank sheet again. He gripped his pencil and leaned over the desk surface as if he were about to dive into the picture. He was ready to create.

With long strokes, he drew the outline of a lake and a mountain with two peaks. He picked the higher mountain peak and drew a castle made of stones. Then he connected the castle to the lake with a winding path. After filling in the landscape with trees, he pulled back from his picture and nodded his head.

The book on medieval history sat propped opened against the wall near Hudson’s stacks of books. He had books on every subject: space, animals, geography, the world wars, and many more; but his current favorite was the book with pictures of knights, dragons, and mysterious castles.

His grandfather, whose desk he sat at, would have been proud of all the reading he’d done on the Middle Ages that week. The current chapter displayed a picture of a typical 11th century scene. Serfs performed their daily duties in one section, working crops and selling goods, while knights trained with weapons in another section.

The picture Hudson drew was supposed to be a copy of that picture, but it lacked the realism he wanted. Life was like that for Hudson. He could never quite make the picture into a work of art.

“I need a few characters,” Hudson said. “I need a knight, a few dragons… a troll or two, and a princess.”

About the Author:
Rick Crawford, aka Ricky Bruce, lives in San Jose, California with his wife Marcia and son Clay. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science, a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, and a Master of Arts in Education. He has 15 years of teaching experience and is currently an Educational Specialist for a charter school. He is the author of Ricky Robinson Braveheart and Stink Bomb. You can find his blog at http://www.rickybruce.com.

SUNBURY, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released John L. Moore’s Bows, Bullets, and Bears, the first of eight volumes in the Frontier Pennsylvania series.

About the Book:
Jack Armstrong died violently along the Juniata River in early 1744.

Armstrong was a rough-and-tumble frontier trader whose sharp business practices antagonized one Indian too many. He and two men who worked for him traveled into the woods in early 1744 and never came out again. Word soon crossed the frontier that all three had been murdered. Obscure, but richly detailed documents tell how and why Iroquois Indians living along the Susquehanna River at present-day Sunbury developed evidence that exposed the Native Americans involved in Armstrong’s murder.

John L. Moore’s nonfiction book contains true stories of Armstrong and other real people caught up in the struggles that took place all along the Pennsylvania frontier throughout the late 1600s and 1700s. The stories are set mainly in the valleys of the Delaware, Juniata, Lehigh, Ohio and Susquehanna rivers.

Other chapters tell how:

A colonial-era witch trial.

The Philadelphia jury in Margaret Mattson’s 1683 witchcraft trail delivered a split verdict. She was acquitted of bewitching her neighbors’ cows, but found guilty of being known as a witch. Presiding over the trial was William Penn, who let Margaret go home after her husband and son posted a bond for her “good behavior.”

Moravian missionaries who traveled along the Susquehanna River’s West and North Branches during a famine in 1748 found many Indians sick with smallpox and suffering from starvation. The people in one native town were boiling tree bark for food. In another village they were cooking grass.

Early in the French & Indian War, an influential Iroquois chief known as “The Belt of Wampum” urged Pennsylvania officials to build a fort on the Susquehanna River at the native town called Shamokin, present-day Sunbury. “Such Indians as continue true to you want a place to come to and to live in security,” The Belt said in early 1756.

Frances Slocum, a small girl kidnapped by Indians from her home along the Susquehanna River during the America Revolution, spent most of her adult life as a Miami Indian. In 1839, her brother Joseph and his daughters traveled from Pennsylvania to Indiana to visit her. They traveled by stage coach, canal boat and horse-drawn railroad during their 19-day journey west.

Anecdotes throughout the book describe how Native Americans and Europeans hunted bears, ate bear meat, and used bearskins for blankets and mattresses.

Excerpt:February 1744
By the early 1740s, an Indian trader named Jack Armstrong, who operated out of Lancaster County, had developed a reputation for employing sharp and even antagonistic practices in his dealings with the Delaware Indians who lived, hunted, and trapped along the Susquehanna and the Juniata Rivers. Some of the trader’s white friends had even cautioned him about being overly harsh with his Indian customers and especially about angering them. If Armstrong wasn’t particularly likeable, he was nevertheless a successful trader and a well-known frontier personality. But as hard and tough as Armstrong was, events that occurred along the Juniata River during early 1744 proved that one of his customers, a Delaware Indian known as John Musemeelin, was tougher, harder, and more ferocious.

Armstrong’s story begins in early 1744 when the trader and two men who worked for him, James Smith and Woodworth Arnold, loaded their string of pack horses with trade goods—gun powder, gun flints, lead bullets, glass beads, scissors, woolen blankets, combs, little bells, and other items. For such goods, native trappers would eagerly swap the skins of deer, bears, beavers, elk, otters, foxes, raccoons, and wildcats.

Shikellamy

The three men headed north and followed the trail along the Susquehanna, and then, well north of present-day Harrisburg, swung west and headed out the Juniata toward the Allegheny Mountains. That was in February. By late March and early April, as spring came on, a rumor swept across the frontier: Armstrong and his men had disappeared and weren’t ever coming out of the woods.

As it turned out, all three had been murdered. Since the killings took place in Indian Country—well beyond what was then the western boundary of Pennsylvania—an Indian chief conducted the first official inquiry in the case. Indeed, records of the Pennsylvania colony contain a detailed account of this chief’s investigation into the disappearance and murder of Jack Armstrong. The account itself was dictated by Chief Shikellamy, an Oneida who represented the Iroquois Confederacy at Shamokin and who led the investigation that exposed the killer. Located at the forks of the Susquehanna River, Shamokin was the largest Indian town in what is now Pennsylvania. Shikellamy subsequently had the man arrested and incarcerated. Conrad Weiser, a Pennsylvania German who was the colony’s Indian agent, recorded Shikellamy’s narrative.

About the Author:John L. Moore, a veteran newspaperman, said he employed a journalist’s eye for detail and ear for quotes in order to write about long-dead people in a lively way. He said his books are based on 18th and 19th century letters, journals, memoirs and transcripts of official proceedings such as interrogations, depositions and treaties.

The author is also a professional storyteller who specializes in dramatic episodes from Pennsylvania’s colonial history. Dressed in 18th century clothing, he does storytelling in the persona of “Susquehanna Jack,” a frontier ruffian. Moore is available weekdays, weekends and evenings for audiences and organizations of all types and sizes.

Moore has participated in several archaeological excavations of Native American sites. These include the Village of Nain, Bethlehem; the City Island project in Harrisburg, conducted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission during the 1990s; and a Bloomsburg University dig in 1999 at a Native American site near Nescopeck. He also took part in a 1963 excavation conducted by the New Jersey State Museum along the Delaware River north of Worthington State Forest.

Moore’s 45-year career in journalism included stints as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal; as a Harrisburg-based legislative correspondent for Ottaway News Service; as managing editor of The Sentinel at Lewistown; as editorial page editor and managing editor at The Daily Item in Sunbury; and as editor of the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal in Bethlehem.

POTTSVILLE, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released Steve E. Troutman’sGeology of the Mahanoy, Mahantongo, and Lykens Valleys: Something about the Earth We Walk On.

About the Book:
Author Steve E. Troutman taps his training in geology to take you on a tour of the Mahantongo, Mahanoy and Lykens Valleys from the beginning of time until humans arrived. Steve explains in layman’s terms the variety of geological features present as well as the conditions that led to them. He also includes images and discussions about the flora and fauna that were present during the geologic time scale.

Excerpt:
Let us now consider our local area comprised of the Mahanoy, Mahantongo and Lykens Valleys. Within the larger Mahantongo Valley is contained the Hoofland Valley. Within in the Lykens Valley is contained the coal bearing rock layers of Bear Valley which is north of Williamstown. Within the Mahanoy Valley is contained the coal bearing rock near Trevorton.

All the rocks in the area of our study are sedimentary. These rocks all originated within water or were associated with water as their environment of deposition. Red mud like is found on the Mississippi Delta, forms into red shale layers. Deep water sediments, such as in the Caribbean Sea today, are calcium rich and become limestone. Sands like those found at the ocean beaches are turned into sandstone. These layers of sedimentary rocks are termed rock strata. Sandstone which contains larger sedimentary grains of various sizes including larger pebbles is named conglomerate.

About the Author:

Steve Troutman was born in 1952, into a family with many living grandparents, all with roots in the Mahantongo Valley of Pennsylvania. He developed an interest in genealogy at an early age due to his parents’ interest in family history. Steve studied geology at Franklin and Marshall College, but did not pursue a career in this field. Instead, he continued working for the family business, Troutman Bros. Inc. of Klingerstown, Pa. He is the author of many books on local history and genealogy, including several with his wife, Joan. The Troutmans live and work in the heart of the Mahantongo Valley.

When Borders closed three years ago, newspapers like the International Business Times stated that the reason for lack of profit was that “bookstores had become park-like for many, a place to relax and look.” Active buying, it seems was lacking, especially with the e-book boom, which seemingly made reading far more affordable and space-saving (at least while the boom lasted). Stores like Borders, comprising large spaces in prime real estate areas, simply couldn’t afford to stay open unless they were supported by public funding. Just when all seemed lost for book stores, however, a new trend began: the rise of the independent bookstore, some in areas like Manhattan’s Upper West Side, described by Head of Global Strategy at Envestnet, Zachary Karabell, as a former “retail book desert”. The phenomenon led the New York Times to declare, “Print is not dead yet—at least on the Upper West Side”. The American Booksellers Association, meanwhile, notes that the number of independent books stores has risen by 20 per cent.

Karabell notes that Borders and Barnes & Nobel failed on two accounts: they sold shares publicly (which forced them to pursue high profits) and they aimed for high growth (innovation, disruption), which forced them to compete against Amazon. In fact, they should have specialized in fulfilling the demands of selective audiences, as independent bookstores have been doing so well.

Trends and Breakthroughs

Some of the trends we are seeing which are enabling independent bookstores to stay ahead of their game include:

A focus on children’s and young adults books: Many parents are discouraged by news reports stating that in the US, children spend up to 90 per cent of their time indoors, attached to electronic devices such as tablets, Smartphones, etc. Independent book stores are attracting these markets through incentives such as teen book clubs and the sale of both new and used books, which appeal to parents keen on fostering a love of reading in their children.

Focusing on Local books: Books specializing in local subject matter make great gifts, with independent stores reporting that they sell especially well during the holiday period. Independent book stores are an excellent venue in which to highlight local authors and subjects.

Profiting from Hachette books: The current Amazon-Hachette dispute means that independent book stores are able to offer low-priced Hachette books, since Amazon is currently offering no discounts on these books.

Getting people together: Independent book stores have tapped into the power of books to bring people together, by offering workshops, classes and author reading events, not only at the store itself but in community venues.

Language book stores: The French Embassy’s Albertine Books, which shares two floors of the Beaux-Art Payne Whitney mansion, has tapped into the demand for a dedicated French book store, containing everything from fiction and non-fiction work to graphic novels, kids’ books (in English and French) and more, at prices “as reasonable as they are in France”. The new store will also be a meeting point for those learning French, featuring festivals and conversations in French on literature and science.

Well curated content: The profound knowledge of indie book sellers in literature (both old, classic works and new releases) allows them to craft a fine selection of books that appeal to their customers. Indie book sellers are able to tune in to their client’s needs by conversing with them, finding out what type of content they are after and ordering books in accordance. The pressure for a high turnover faced by companies like Bordersmeant that their focus was on new releases, which led them to ignore the constant demand for popular classics from past centuries. Statistics indicate that sales at independent book stores have risen by eight per cent since 2011, their profits offsetting the costs of rent and the purchase andprotection of books through stock insurance. Without an excessive pressure to sell, independent stores are able to specialize, offer quality service and adequately protect stock of a manageable size.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released a new edition of Dr. George P. Donehoo’s classic 1928 work Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania.

About the Book:Originally published in 1928 by The Telegraph Press as A History of the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania with Numerous Historical Notes and References

This book, Dr. George P. Donehoo’s Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania, was written and published in the early 20th century. That was a time when Americans were just beginning to become enthusiastic fans of much that was, or seemed to be, related to Native Americans. That was a time when Americans romanticized about the people who lived here before the Europeans and others arrived. During the time that Dr. Donehoo was creating this informative book, Americans couldn’t get enough of the popularized images of Indians. Books, paintings, songs and movies delivered exciting images of Native American life.

Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania is a valuable reference book for anyone, student or other, who wants to learn more about the land’s inhabitants before it ever became “Penn’s Woods.” Although first published in 1928, it was reprinted in 1977. Now it is being reprinted again. The need for this reprint comes from Dr. Donehoo’s translations of the hundreds of Native American names that appear across the commonwealth. We must accept a sorry fact: Pennsylvania’s Native American population is almost totally gone from the commonwealth. In addition, the main things that they left behind might be their countless arrowheads and their hundreds of Native American place names. While not all citizens of the Keystone State are interested in our state’s Indian heritage, all should be aware of it.

The author, Dr. George P. Donehoo, was a scholar who studied many aspects of Native American culture. At the time that he was studying and writing, there had been very little archaeology to support his work; yet Dr. Donehoo was able to explain much about the Native Americans’ several languages, their sweeping historical events and the many important historical sources on which he based his information. Above all, Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania explains the meanings of hundreds of Indian names–from Achsinning (Standing Stone) to Zinachson (Demon’s Den) that still appear throughout our commonwealth. Although most Native Americans and their culture have vanished from Pennsylvania, their colorful place names are a permanent reminder of their once-vibrant presence. Because Dr. George P. Donehoo was so diligent and conscientious in his work, this book explains those fascinating names. For the many readers who do appreciate our Native American heritage, this book will continue to be a welcome addition to their libraries. The reader will soon realize why Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania is a marvelous reference work.

Excerpt:
MAHANOY, MAHONING, MAHONY. A name that is much used over the entire state, chiefly as a name of various creeks and runs, but also as a village and town name, with various compounds. Is a corruption of Mahoni, “a lick,” and with the locative, ink, or ing, “at the lick,” having reference to the “licks” which were frequented by deer, elk, and other animals. The principal streams having the name are; the stream, now called Mahoning, which enters the Lehigh River from the south, opposite Weissport, Carbon County; the creek that enters the Susquehanna from the east in Northumberland County, now called Mahanoy; the creek that enters the Allegheny River, from the east in Armstrong County, formerly called Mohulbucteetam (which see); the stream that enters the Beaver from the west, at Lawrence Junction, Lawrence County, called Mahoning River; the stream, now called Penns Creek, which enters the Susquehanna, from the west, at Selinsgrove, was formerly called Big Mahonoy, or Mahony. There are several other smaller streams in various parts of the state, which have the same name, with various modifications.

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — Sunbury Press has released Bill Felker’s 2015 edition of Poor Will’s Almanack, since 1984, a traditional guide to living in harmony with the Earth.

About the Book:
Contents of the 2015 Edition:
Using the Floating Calendar for the Twelve Moveable Seasons
A Note on the Beginning of the Natural Year
The Weather in Poor Will’s Almanack
The Almanack as a Fishing, Hunting and Dieting Guide
About the S.A.D. Index
Farming and Gardening with the Almanack
A Note about Almanack Literature
Contents of the Monthly Chapters
Time of Day in Poor Will’s Almanack
Index of Seasonal Essays by Bill Felker
Index of Almanac Literature
A Floating Calendar of Bloom for Selected Wildflowers, Weeds, Garden Perennials, Shrubs and Trees
Markers for the Progress of Spring at Average Elevations along the 40th Parallel
An Incomplete Chronology of Leafturn Along the 40th Parallel During Early and Middle Fall in an Average Year

Monthly Almanack Chapters:
November 2014
December 2014
January 2015
February 2015
March 2015
April 2015
May 2015
June 2015
July 2015
August 2015
September 2015
October 2015
November 2015
December 2015

Excerpt:
Throughout the continental United States and Canada, the seasons follow the standard calendar less than they do the dictates of elevation and latitude. Although almost all deciduous trees between Maine and Florida have lost their leaves by January 1, the variation in temperature between the northern and southern states at the beginning of the year can be more than fifty degrees. Within that broad geographical context, the advance of the seasons is highly varied; nevertheless, certain patterns are visible that are applicable to much of the country.

One way to delineate these patterns is to characterize them by what is going on in nature. Under this kind of organization, a season such as early spring has certain traits, may occur in Louisiana in January but take place in northern Minnesota as late as the beginning of May. A floating calendar, one that is generally applicable to events rather than to specific dates, allows the observer to identify the season by what is actually going on in the local habitat rather than by the standard Gregorian calendar.

Under such a floating system, the seasons truly are moveable in that they advance at different rates in different parts of the country. And within the broad guidelines sketched here, the Almanack traveler can watch not only the landscape change with the passage of the miles, but the time of year and seasons, too.

In Poor Will’s Almanack for 2015, I have divided the year into twelve seasons and have noted how they take place in different ways and at different times in the different parts of the country. Although I have kept the basic monthly sequence in the organization of information, I have noted the months during which a specific season might be likely to occur in different regions. These are broad strokes of the phenological pen, but they allow Almanack readers to not only see what is going on in their area but in other areas, as well.

About the Author:
Bill Felker has been writing nature columns and almanacs for regional and national publications since 1984. His Poor Will’s Almanack has appeared as an annual publication since 2003. His organization of weather patterns and phenology (what happens when in nature) offers a unique structure for understanding the repeating rhythms of the year.

Exploring everything from animal husbandry to phenology, Felker has become well known to farmers as well as urban readers throughout the country. He is an occasional speaker on the environment at nature centers, churches and universities, and he has presented papers related to almanacking at academic conferences, as well. Felker has received three awards for his almanac writing from the Ohio Newspaper Association. “Better writing cannot be found in America’s biggest papers,” stated the judge on the occasion of Felker’s award in 2000.

Currently, Bill Felker lives with his wife in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He has two daughters, Jeni, who is a psychologist in Portland, Oregon, and Neysa, a photographer in Spoleto, Italy.